Posts filed under 'Books & Paper'
When packing for our trip I knew I had to pack children’s books — we couldn’t go a whole three months without them, no matter how heavy they made our suitcases! So I decided to pack books that were relevant to our travels — books about nature, animals, sea creatures, etc.
Over the years we’ve collected many of the books from the award-winning Read and Wonder series of nature storybooks, including One Tiny Turtle
, Surprising Sharks
, and Bat Loves the Night
. The Read and Wonder storybooks are great because they merge stories with interesting facts, making them entertaining as well as educational.
These books have turned out to be perfect for our trip — we’ve seen so many of the featured animals (sharks, turtles, bats, frogs…) and so it’s fun for the kids to read about them. Plus the books are all paperback — making them much easier to lug around with us.
-Courtney
Courtney in London
March 12th, 2010
Another fabulous interactive colouring book just begging to be illustrated! They seem to be popping up everywhere these days and with good reason too. Created by talented Melbournian Nicole Mandile, in the first of her My Picture Storybooks series, The Magical Milky Way’s Super Galactic Zoo kept my rambunctious 4-year-old son in check on a long-haul airplane flight recently. So naturally I am a big fan. He was totally engrossed in creating, drawing and pasting away, each page providing the perfect canvas for his masterpiece. It helps that he has a complete fascination with all things galaxy-related.
The book is created using uncoated paper, a great surface to sketch on and is staple bound so the pages open flat. It is printed in Australia on 100% recycled paper. It isn’t too long or too short — just perfect to capture their little attention spans.
Available through weheartbooks for local and international shipment.
- Sara
Sara in Melbourne
March 7th, 2010
Yes, it’s true. I’ve been having a secret affair with a man called Roger. It started shortly after my son was born 3 years ago and my husband doesn’t know about it … yet. I got caught up with this guy when I bought a book called The Happy Lion for my son (A Babyccino favourite as Courtney wrote about here). He illustrated the book written by his wife Louise Fatio. We both (my son and I) immediately fell in love with the story and accompanying pictures and wanted to learn more about this French Lion. So we set about buying some more of the stories in the Happy Lion series. But we could only get ‘The Happy Lion Roars‘ direct from Amazon — all the others seemed out of print and only available through the Amazon Market Place. Over the last couple of years we have gradually bought them up when they have been for sale at a sensible price. We fell so much in love with this Lion that we grew to want more from his creators.
Ms. Fatio also wrote about a delightful penguin and his lady-love: Hector and Christina (but you have to keep your eyes peeled on e-bay or Amazon to find copies of them, which is definitely worth doing). But Mr. Duvoisin (Roger when you know him like I do) has a library to start collecting — he illustrated a number of books written by Alvin Tresselt including White Snow, Bright Snow and Hide and Seek Fog (which are still in print) and The Beaver Pond (which you can usually find a pretty cheap second-hand copy of). But I love the books he has both written and illustrated: The Petunia Goose stories, the Veronica Hippopotomus stories (and the stories where those two meet, as in Veronica on Petunia’s Farm — a hippo and a goose — brilliant!). His writing has an old-fashioned tone but I’m a sucker for his illustrations.
He is really worth looking out for in second-hand bookstores and you can often find a real bargain. At the time of going to press one of my favourite titles; ‘Mr and Mrs Button’s Wonderful Watchdogs’ was on Amazon for £0.01 (+ £2.75 postage) – a whole lot of story fun for under £3! I love that the books have been owned and loved by children from generations gone by –you can see their scribbles and the much-thumbed pages and imagine that children then and now are similar in many ways. I also like seeing the contrast of these old books in my children’s room next to all their new shiny toys and books. It’s nice to see that to them, at such a young age, there’s no difference.
My Duvoisin recommendations (other than the aforementioned) are The House of Four Seasons (a book about colours), The Crocodile in the Tree, Donkey Donkey and Petunia’s Christmas.
I set myself some rules when buying second-hand books on e-bay or Amazon (so as not to go too overboard). They are:
1. Have a limit of what you’re prepared to spend — mine is usually £10. If the title costs more, wait it out. My experience says that one week it could cost you over £50 and the next under £10 (I bought Petunia’s Christmas for a couple of pounds back in July last year but nearer Christmas it was reaching over £100!).
2. Decide what condition you are prepared to accept — often online marketplaces have condition categories (like new, very good, good, acceptable etc). I don’t mind scribbles and worn edges but want a good binding so that it doesn’t fall apart when a child reads it (that is usually classed as good or above — even though I always read the description of acceptable as one person’s good is another’s acceptable). If you want a like new standard for old books you are going to have to pay for it.
3. When you find an author or illustrator that you like then search for their other titles, they rarely disappoint.
Happy reading.
-Mo. x
Mo in London
March 4th, 2010
It is hard to believe but Merci, one of Paris’ most fashionable concept stores has been out-trumped by a kid’s store. Just a stone’s throw away from Merci on the corner where the boulevard Beaumarchais turns into the boulevard Filles du Calvaire, Bonton has opened up a 800 M² new flagship shop. It is absolutely fabulous! On over 3 floors you can find clothes, clothes and even more clothes, a book shop (with a GREAT selection of books), a bakery, a sweets bar, a hair dresser, a deco area and I don’t even remember what else.
Rebecca (who used to write for us from Washington and who has, luckily for me, moved back to Paris) and I went to the opening and had a blast. The Prosecco was flowing, there was a huge counter full of hams and cheeses and little sandwiches. It was a great way of discovering the shop and the new Bonton summer collection.
Oh, did I mention that they also have one of those old-fashioned photo booths with a bucket full of dressing up hats in front of it? We also took advantage of that, though we were the only grown-ups queueing up for it in a huge line of kids…
- Emilie
BONTON
5 boulevard Filles Du Calvaire
75003 Paris
Open: Monday – Saturday 10:00 – 19:00
Emilie in Paris
March 4th, 2010
Before we left for our sabbatical, I sat down with the teachers at my son’s school and asked them if they had any suggestions or activities they recommended for my son while we’re away. They told me that kids often forget basic lessons if they take a long break from school — apparently kids can forget how to use scissors, forget how to count, even forget how to read if they go a while without doing it! So they suggested that I try to keep up on these sorts of activities. They also suggested that I take the time to teach my 4-year-old the basics of reading.
I’m not the most patient parent and I’m certainly not cut out for ‘real’ home-schooling, but I must admit I’m actually having some success thanks to these Key Words Flash Cards — containing the 100 key words that make up 50% of those we read, write and speak every day. The concept of flash cards is easy: they gradually introduce the words and, because of repetition, teach kids to recognize and memorize the words on first sight.
I’m also teaching my 2-year-old his letters. I’m using the Early Learning ABC Flashcards
which are really good because they include both the capital letters and the lowercase ones. (Apparently different countries do it differently — I’ve been teaching my kids the capital letters, but in the UK they teach kids the lowercase letters first!)
In both cases the flashcards are working really well. My boys actually look forward to our ‘letters and words’ lesson every morning!
-Courtney
Courtney in London
February 18th, 2010
As Courtney mentioned I’m a bit of a nut when it comes to children’s books, and Sparkle and Spin
is my latest aquistition. The book is about words and is SO SO SO beautifully illustrated. I really love it. Without even knowing it, it appears I have stumbled upon a pretty powerful author/illustrator team with Paul and Ann Rand.
Paul Rand is known as one of America’s greatest graphic designers having designed logos for IBM, UPS and ABC. He teamed up with his wife, Ann, in the 1950s and ’60s to produce some children’s books. Rather then stories, their books explain things like how words are used (as in Sparkle and Spin) or what ‘knowing’ is (in ‘I Know a Lot of Things‘, which I have on order) or being alone in ‘Little 1‘ (also on order!).
I’m just hoping that the final of the 4 books they collaborated on ‘Listen, Listen’ is put back into print soon (as it is out of my price range in the used-book stores!).
-Mo
Mo in London
February 3rd, 2010
Here are two books that my son (aged 3) and I love: Who’s Hiding?
by Satoru Onishi and Spot It!: Find the Hidden Creatures
by Delphine Chedru.
Both books are about finding things in the pictures — ‘Who’s Hiding?’ is a bit like playing that memory game with a tray of objects, but in this book we have a line-up of animals and we have to find which one is hiding or crying or asleep. I was so surprised that my son could do it when we bought the book about a year ago as I found it quite difficult.
‘Spot It!’ is much harder but so beautiful you don’t mind staring hard at the pages to ’spot it’ — creatures hide within graphic patterns and we often have to stare for a few minutes before finding them. I love how we both start to panic when we can’t find them immediately (he obviously takes after me with his impatience)!
Both books are available from the Babyccino Bookshop (both US and UK).
-Mo. x
Mo in London
January 29th, 2010
I do love new designs/books/characters that appeal to grown-ups and kids alike. My girls are going crazy for the Noodoll characters I brought home recently, and so am I.
Noodoll lives in Noodle town where everyone and everything is made out of noodles. His main arch enemy is Rice Head, who is constantly trying to stop the Noodles. The illustrations are great, very simple and funky.
The world of Noodoll and Ricehead spans from books to accessorizes and toys. And, if you have a spare second do check out the website — the noodle and rice recipes are some of the best I have ever found!
- Emilie
Emilie in Paris
January 28th, 2010
It is the 17th book in the ‘This is…’ series and Sasek is visiting down under! This is Australia is a wonderful book to add to the classic travel series, first published in the ’70s, which Courtney posted about here!
In line with the later books in the series, the colours are slightly vintage and the images are retro and whimsical. And Sasek’s mode of travel to the land down under? Not in chains like the first British colonists, but on a Qantas big bird!! (which incidentally, ‘flies very well’, unlike the Australian penguin and emu!) I absolutely love these books — they introduce children to the people, customs and places of interest in cities around the world, captivating young readers with gorgeous illustrations and a witty narrative. I also think it’s fascinating to see each city from a 1960’s perspective. And…needless to say, in my family we just love the Aussie edition!
Available for worldwide delivery at Amazon
.
ps. Courtney, this is the perfect souvenir for your children and will remind them for years to come of their great Aussie adventure!!
- Sara
Sara in Melbourne
January 27th, 2010
Although my husband and I speak English for work on a daily basis, our children speak only Italian. We do make an effort by teaching them a word every now and then and by showing them some English DVDs, and we truly welcome any activity which will help our kids learn a bit of English in a fun way.
That’s why we were so happy to receive a personalised bilingual alphabet book by Sweet Arts Design. The idea is as smart as it is simple! The book is a regular alphabet book with a picture for every word, but the smart idea was to use words that have the same initial in the different languages. Ours is, of course, an English-Italian one but you can also choose Spanish and French.
The books are printed to order so you can have it personalised with the child’s name, you can choose the picture on the cover, the background letter and the cover colour.
Books are either soft or hard-cover and you can order them from their website where you can also find loads of other items with their cheerful and sweet prints.
-Michela
Michela in Milan
January 13th, 2010
This morning, conveniently before we were about to leave the house, the girls decided that they were going to take out ALL of their puzzles and “build a bridge to a princess island” across the entire apartment with the pieces. While I didn’t want to interrupt their burst of ill-timed creativity I was not all that excited about who would be cleaning it all up. Anyway – while scanning down the “princess bridge”, I was reminded of one of my favorite on-line haunts for puzzles and crafts. Lakeshore Learning is my go-to source for amazing games, paper products and crafts. The website is first and foremost a resource for school teachers and most of the items that you will find are used in classrooms. A few things that I literally can not live without are the peel and stick boards and the bags of craft materials. The other items that are great are the early learning toys, like the one pictured. All in all, everything that you will find on the site is is high quality, mindful and engaging.
-Dina
Dina in New York
December 30th, 2009
For my son’s first Christmas his Aunt (in Berlin) bought him a beautiful kinderzimmer (Kid’s Room) calendar, illustrated by Wolf Erlbruch — the gentleman who illustrated The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew it Was None of His Business
(which if you don’t know you should probably stop reading and take yourself to the nearest book-retailer or library to find a copy).
I secretly hoped this would become the annual present from his aunt, but as it wasn’t last year, I have decided to take matters into my own hands and buy him the 2010 calendar this year. It seems they only do it in German — but even if Deutsch is not one of your household languages the illustrations compensate by far.
The topic for 2010 is ‘big and small’ and the illustrations are divine — my favourites are the sausage dog and the fish, and the moose and the owl in the tree (how great is a world where a moose and an owl sit chatting in a tree!). I also love that this calendar comes in A2 size — so it really makes a statement on the wall.
You can buy it from Amazon (UK)
. Or, if you prefer to pay in euro, from Amazon.de.
-Mo
Mo in London
December 26th, 2009
We have a few different versions of this Christmas poem, but Gyo Fujikawa’s The Night Before Christmas is our favourite! Her illustrations are so beautiful and in a way that appeals to adults and kids alike. Fujikawa, also known for her version of Mother Goose, creates the most lovely, vintage-like illustrations. We especially love the cheery little Santa… and the sugar-plums!
We’ve been reading the story every night before bed and my kids now know the entire poem by heart. We are so excited for Santa to come!
The book is available from our Bookshop (UK and US) along with many other great holiday books.
-Courtney
Courtney in London
December 22nd, 2009
It is soon that time of year again. The holidays are coming up very quickly and people are getting ready to wrap loads of presents!
I don’t know if this ever happens to you, but I routinely run out of paper and accessories and often have to write down people’s names with a marker on the wrapping paper. Practical but not very chic, right?
Together with the lovely and very talented Mrs Booth we thought we would make your life a tiny bit easier. Mrs Booth is a card, print and book designer whose simple and engaging style makes her one of my favourites. And she has kindly designed some holiday gift tags exclusively for Babyccino readers!
The designs are stinkin’ cute and I am sure your kids will love them too. You can download the adorable gift tags here, and print as many as you need! We hope you like them as much as we do!
-Emilie
Emilie in Paris
December 15th, 2009
Do you like my kids’ art gallery they created? They drew sketches on giant sticky notes and then stuck their drawings up on the wall. And I didn’t have to do a thing!
The Genius Pads are great for kids, but fun for grown-ups too. Say you have a really big grocery list, or a really important event you must remember. Or maybe you just want to tell your husband you really LOVE him… or give him a reminder you don’t want him to forget (i.e. ‘throw your socks in the laundry basket and not on the floor’ or ‘please take the rubbish out!’ etc.) I even left a message for our postman today with a giant sticky note stuck to our front door! Pretty handy really.
The sticky notes and other clever gadgets are available from Arash and Kelly.
-Courtney
Courtney in London
December 8th, 2009
Like Mo said earlier, dragging the kids out to do holiday shopping is unbearable! And how are you supposed to buy gifts for your kids in front of your kids? Thank goodness for great webshops like Smallable — which has SUCH a lovely and wide selection of beautiful children’s gifts, toys and accessories. Whether it’s something big like the Offi Rocking Horse, something crafty like the Mitik Mask’Animo Kit, or something beautiful like the Lalé Suitcases, there is something for everyone.
Smallable recently asked us to choose 8 of our favorite products for their Babyccino Chrstimas Selection (yes, only 8 — can you imagine how long it took to narrow it down?!). And in return, they’re offering our readers 20% off the selected 8 items! Just enter discount code NOELBABYCCINO at check-out (offer good until Dec. 21st). Holiday shopping just got easier!
-Courtney
Courtney in London
December 7th, 2009
I love Christmas! But my problem is I start getting that Bing Crosby feeling around mid-October and it is no good for my kids’ excitement levels. So, as of last year, there is now a self-imposed rule: no Christmassiness (that includes Gingerbread Lattes, Mince Pies and said Bing) until 1st December. Well Bah Humbug!
As with most rules I have been finding ways to get around it, and one way is with this Advent Calendar I have been preparing (since about mid-June) for my children.
As I was clearing out their bookshelves to make room for a particularly large Amazon delivery I decided to put the Christmas themed books away until December — we had 8, so that made some space. It occurred to me that it would be a nice idea to have a Christmas story every night of Advent… and so the Christmas Story Book Calendar was born. Of course my husband thinks I am madly excessive buying a further 16 Christmas books over the last months but this is a calendar that will come out year after year.
I’ve wrapped each book up in super cheap red wrapping from Ikea (is there no end to their brilliance?) and numbered them for the 24 days until Christmas. I am so excited to see my children unwrapping one parcel each night before bed and for me to re-read the stories. Some of my choices are German Christmas books for my husband to read and I’ve wrapped those for the days when we visit Berlin so Oma, Opa and other family can also get involved.
This is how our calendar looks this year:
1. Mr Snow – Roger Hargreaves
2. Little Elephant’s Christmas – Heluiz Washburne & Jean McConnell
3. Madeline’s Christmas – Ludwig Bemelmans
4. Petunia’s Christmas – Roger Duvoisin
5. A Star So Bright – M Christina Butler & Caroline Peder
6. Mog’s Christmas – Judith Kerr
7. The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey – Susan Wojciechowski
8. One Snowy Night – Nick Butterworth
9. Lyle at Christmas – Bernard Waber
10. Letters from father Christmas – J.R.R. Tolkien
11. Die Weihnachtsengelein – Else Wenz-Vietor
12. Weihnachten im Stall – Astrid Lindgren
13. Wie Weihnachtelt Man? – Kathrin Schaerer & Lorenz Pauli
14. Weihnachten im Bullerbue – Astrid Lindgren
15. Little Rabbit’s Christmas – Harry Horse
16. Albert le Blanc – Nick Butterworth
17. Bear Stays Up For Christmas – Karma Wilson & Jane Chapman
18. Paddington and the Christmas Surprise – Michael Bond
19. Mr Willowby’s Christmas Tree – Robert Barry
20. The Little Fir Tree – Margaret Wise Brown
21. One Thousand Christmas Beards – Roger Duvoisin (out of print)
22. Christmas Day in the Morning – Pearl S. Buck
23. The First Christmas – Jan Pienkowski
24. ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas – Clement C. Moore (Illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith)
You can find some of these and other favourite Festive Season Books in the Babyccino Bookshop.
-Mo
Mo in London
November 29th, 2009
The books by Iela and Enzo Mari are so perfect for our little international audience of readers — I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to write about them! Not only are the iconic illustrations so beautiful and the stories so sweet, but they are completely wordless so there’s no language barrier for non-English speaking kids.
The books, including La Mela e la Farfalla
(’Apple and the Butterfly’, pictured left) all depict natural cycles and playful transformations. Iela Mari beautifully conveys the cycle of caterpillar to butterfly, or, in another book, a chicken laying an egg
.
What is also so nice about a story without words is that it allows the reader to interpret the story on a personal level and really soak up the details of the images. Your kids will love them too because they can ‘read’ them on their own!
-Courtney
(Images from Animalarium.)
Courtney in London
November 17th, 2009
For the past year or so, I have had my daughter make a card for everyone’s birthday– much more personal than a store-bought card! But, on occasion, I’ll have to admit that it was a bit like pulling teeth — sometimes she was just not in the mood for art when I needed a card to mail. This is why I was tickled to discover Print Art Kids– they turn your kids artwork (or photos) into all sorts of practical things- notecards, labels, notepads, and more. My daughter labored over a very special birthday card, I uploaded it to Print Art Kids site, added a border, and voila! I have a bunch of great birthday cards, designed by my daughter. She was so proud to see her design duplicated, and now I have a stash of ready made cards. Now we’ll have to get to work on our holiday card design….
xx Rebecca
Rebecca in Washington
November 5th, 2009
Luckily in Italy the vast majority of shops will gift-wrap any item you buy as a present. Some are stylish wrapping jobs, some are simple boxes and sometimes there’s nothing more than a ribbon on a paper shopping bag.
But that’s normally enough for me; unlike Courtney, I’m not that good at wrapping plus I’m also not extremely organised with papers, ribbons and tags. Quite often my children bring gifts to their friends and the birthday wishes are written on the wrapping paper with a big marker (nice handwriting though!).
Things might slightly change, because now my children have a small supply of super cute personalised gift tags! Trendy Peas has a vast selection of contemporary wall art and paper goods for children. The designs are chosen with children in mind — from letters and numbers, to safari and flowers, they have something for everyone.
I can’t wait for the next birthday party.
-Michela
Michela in Milan
November 4th, 2009
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